SIBA

Everyday Life in Turkish and Yugoslav Cities

Biographies

Namık Görgüç [Show photographs]

1895 (Istanbul) – 5 July 1947 (Istanbul)

Namık Görgüç was the son of Mücellidbaşızâde Nureddin Bey. The family owned a camera and Namık came into contact with photography already in childhood. He was soon to gain experience as an amateur photographer. After finishing Vefa High School, he served as an officer in World War I. On the recommendation of his relative and neighbour in the city’s Beylerbeyi district, journalist and publisher Yunus Nadi, Namık began to take photographs for Nadi’s newly founded newspaper 'Cumhuriyet'. Görgüç worked for the paper for the next twenty-four years, but also did freelance work for other publications such as the short-lived newspaper 'Yenigün' (1931) and the weekly 'Yedi Gün'. His younger colleague at Cumhuriyet, Selahattin Giz, described Namık Görgüç as his personal mentor, and in a broader sense, as the tutor of an entire generation of press photographers. (JL)

  • Ak, Seyit Ali (2001): Erken Cumhuriyet Dönemi Türk Fotografi, 1923–1960. Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi.
  • Ak, Seyit Ali (1984): Namık Görgüç basınımızın fotoğraf ustalarındandı, Cumhuriyet (26 July 1984), 3.
  • Görgüç, Namık (1945): Fotoğrafta Meraklı Mevzular, Genç Amatörün Dergisi. Haziran 1945, 8.
  • Kavas, Uğur (2010): Türkiye’de Foto Muhabirliğini meslek dalı olarak kabul ettiren kişi, Namık Görgüç. Istanbul: Foto Muhabiri (December).
  • Kıymetli bir arkadaşı daha kaybettil, Cumhuriyet (8 July 1947), 1.
  • Namığın Cenazesi, Cumhuriyet (9 July 1947), 1.
  • Namığın hatıralar, Cumhuriyet (9 July 1947), 2.

Aleksandar Aca Simić [Show photographs]

1898 (Belgrade) – 1971 (Belgrade).

Aleksandar Aca Simić was one of three permanent photo editors and reporters employed by the Belgrade daily 'Politika' in the interwar period. He joined the newspaper in 1923, after Jurij Usakovski (1921) and before Raka Ruben (1930). As a teenage boy, he had accompanied the retreat of the Serbian Army through Albania in the winter of 1915–16 and had been evacuated to Paris where he lived until 1923, studying architecture and design at the 'Ecole Nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs'. In 1923, he returned to Belgrade, enrolling at the Technical Faculty, Department of Architecture, where he graduated in the same year and joined 'Politika'. He stayed until 1941, and soon became a legend due to his excellent skills. He was the only photojournalist in Belgrade to own a motorcycle with a sidecar, celebrating the art of the speedy reporter. He not only documented official events, but also everyday life and people in the city. He signed, titled and numbered his glass plates in characteristic handwriting and established the 'Politika' style of photo documentation, which is still in use today. He also worked for 'Ilustrovani List', 'Komedija' and 'Sport'. His professional equipment during that period consisted of a Contessa-Nettel travel camera (‘Reisekamera’) of German origin (1926: negative dim 9x12 cm; 1929: negative dim 6,5 x 9 cm) with a Tessar lens, but he also probably used a LEICA camera.

During German military administration, Simić accepted a job with 'Novo Vreme', a daily close to the government, until 1942. After the war, this brought him into difficulty with the Tito regime, which accused him of collaboration. He photographed for a range of journals until 1952, when he was fully rehabilitated and appointed chief photo editor of the Communist Party daily, 'Borba' (Fight). In 1954, Simić became a member of the Association of Visual Artists of Applied Arts of Serbia (‘Udruženje likovnih umetnika primenjene umetnosti Srbije’, ULUPUS). He was awarded various national and international prizes for his work. (NM, MM).

  • Ćirić, Darko (2012): Gradski Nomad. Beogradski zapisi fotoreportera Aleksandra Ace Simića. Beograd: Muzej grada Beograda.
  • Milosavljević, Predrag (2004): Foto-Vremeplov, Kako je 'Politika' videla dvadeseti vek (1904–1941). I knjiga. Beograd: Politika AD.

Alija M. Akšamija [Show photographs]

1919 (Rogatica, Bosnia) – 4 April 2016 (Sarajevo). Born into a baker's family, Alija Akšamija left his home town in 1937 to acquire the skill of photography. He found a photo studio in Sarajevo, ‘Foto Jović’, where his task was to keep the premises clean, but soon afterwards his father called him home. By pure chance, Alija made a lucky draw in the lottery. This enabled him, in 1938, to buy his first camera in Zagreb, where he had gone to participate in a ‘Soko’ manifestation. Back in Rogatica, he started to experiment, photographing his friends (women and elderly people declined the offer), and making short trips to Sarajevo where he began to work on his first series, 'Iz Sarajeva 1938–39'.

In January 1940, Alija was recruited into the army and sent to Banja Luka. During World War II, he was captured by the Germans and sent to the Doboj concentration camp. He succeeded in escaping. Back home, his mother informed him that his father had been murdered by Serbian chetniks. As the eldest son, it was now his duty to look after the family. Shortly afterwards, they were driven from Rogatica along with other Muslim families. Alija took only his camera – and photographed. In Sarajevo, he joined Tito's resistance movement and engaged in illegal activities. After the war, he declined the offer of a college position intended as a reward and succeeded in graduating in photography at a technical school in 1950 as an external student.

Back in Rogatica, he convinced the new administration to engage him as a state-employed photographer in a studio set up especially for his work. Alija continued to document local people and changes in Rogatica, as he had done in Sarajevo. After receiving his master diploma in photography in 1953, he left his home town again to open his own photo studio in Višegrad. His mother, brother and sisters remained in Rogatica. His wife Munira, born Branković, joined him in 1954, shortly before their first son Mehmed was born. She also worked as a photographer and their two sons Mehmed and Emir were to follow in their parents’ footsteps.

In Višegrad, the authorities commissioned Alija to document the reconstruction of the town and all official events. He engaged even more deeply in documenting the everyday life of his surroundings, developing his own original style of portrait photography. His opus represents a unique record of the people who populated provincial Bosnia in the socialist period – a work that is at once artistic and gives an account of their lives. His best-known photographs, however, are his three portraits of Nobel prizewinner Ivo Andrić at the Drina bridge in Višegrad. In the late 1980s, Alija moved to Sarajevo where he lived through a second war and the Serbian siege of the city. He died there on 4 April 2016, aged ninety-seven. Alija M. Akšamija won many national and international prizes. In 2008, he received the 'Lifetime achievement award in recognition of the highest standards in creative analogue and digital photography', awarded by the Association of Independent Professional Photographers of Europe. (NM)

Jean Weinberg [Show photographs]

Jean Weinberg, of Romanian Jewish origin, was an influential photographer of the early Republic of Turkey. He owned a studio in 150, Grand Rue de Péra, Istanbul, which in the mid-twenties, he advertised as 'Photo Français, fournisseur Officiel du Corps Diplomatique, Collaborateur des Journaux Times London, l'Illustration Paris, New-York Times, Die Woche, et Illustrierte Zeitung Berlin'. He was also active as a press photographer and often worked on his own initiative. In 1923, shortly before the declaration of the Republic, he went to Ankara to take a picture of Mustafa Kemal, 'the biggest genius of modern times', and waited 45 days in order to get his picture. In the following years, he took some of the most influential and widely used photographs of Mustafa Kemal, among others the portrait for the passport which introduced the name Atatürk as Mustafa Kemal's family name. After the parliament act of 1932, which prohibited foreigners from working as photographers, Jean Weinberg left for Egypt where he eventually opened a new studio.

  • Weinberg, Jean (1933): Gazi'nin Eseri. L'oeuvre du Gazi. Istanbul.